Zoo City: Summary and Study Guide

Lauren Beukes

A small time private investigator agrees to find a missing person but finds herself dragged into a serial murder
case instead. Zinzi December lives in Johannesburg, in the neighborhood known as Zoo City. She is recovering
addict who is trying to pay off a large debt to her old drug dealer.

In the world of the book a strange plague in the 1980s lead to the rise of a phenomenon known as ‘animalling'.
Anyone who is guilty of a grave crime suddenly finds themselves partnered with an animal familiar and possessed of
some strange talent.

The animals are connected somehow to their owners, who suffer pain and weakness if separated from the animal.
Worse, if the animal dies the owner is literally dragged into the abyss by a dark cloud known as the undertow.

In between the chapters that tell Zinzi's story we get background on the animal plague and on the it has had on
society, culture, and the criminal justice system.

Zinzi's animal is a sloth and her ability is finding lost objects. She is eeking out an existence writing 419 scam
emails and dating her boyfriend Benoit who works as a security guard and has an animal of his own, a mongoose.

Zinzi is on a job finding something for a client when the client is murdered, leaving her without the money from the
case and as the prime suspect by the police. Outside of the crime scene she is approached by two strangers calling
themselves Marabou & Maltese, after their animals, who try to hire her to find a missing person. ZInzi refuses,
saying she doesn't do people since they are too complicated and painful.

Benoit, who is a refuge from a war zone, finds out that his wife and child whom he thought dead are still alive. He
tells Zinzi he is going to have to figure out how to go find them, she is not thrilled by these revelations but
continues seeing him while he is sorting this out.

With the money from her last job gone Zinzi calls Marabou and Maltese and tells then she will meet with their
client about his missing person. The client turns out to be Odi Huron, a famously reclusive music producer who had
a string of hits, disappeared for a while, and has recently made a comeback with a pop duo called IJusi composed of
twin brother and sister S'bu and Songweza.

Songweza, known as Song, has been missing for several days and Odi doesn't know if she has been taken or left of
her own, but here's a record launch coming up in three weeks and Huron wants to avoid a scandal so he can't call
the police.

Zinzi agrees to take the case and starts by talking to Song's brother S'bu, who claims to have no idea where she is
or why. Zinzi learns about the kids; they were part of a talent contest and launched to fame after their parents
both died. She talks to their young friends and finds out that Song might have been dating someone.

Zinzi contacts her old magazine connections to dig further, pretending its for a comeback piece and that she's
getting back into the business. Her old boyfriend who works for the magazine is delighted and helps her out.

Zinzi goes to a rehab clinic Song stayed at and finds out more about the boyfriend plus some other leads.

Gio discovers she is not writing a story after all and expresses frustration but asks her to write one anyway and
he'll publish it.

While investigating a lead Zinzi gets mugged by a gang that threaten to kill her and take her sloth to use in a from
of magic called 'muti', they claim to have done so with other animals and she barely escapes from them.

The information she got at the rehab clinic lead her to a bouncer named Ronaldo that helped Song i n the past. She
gets his address and finds Son hiding in the same apartment building. Song claims to be fine and just wants to be
left alone, she swears that someone is out to kill her. Before Zinzi can hear much more Marabu and Maltese show
up and drag Song off explaining that she stopped taking her medication when she left and is unbalanced.

Uncertain Zinzi looks into the case further, visiting Song again and finding her heavily medicated. She notices a
pattern of people close to Song having gone missing including Ronaldo.
She gets her money for finding Song and pays her drug dealer off. Impulsively she also emails back all the current
scams she has going telling them it's a con.

She starts seeing the connections between her case and some other missing people and murders, plus some strange
fractured emails she has been receiving. She looks into it further and discovers that at least some of the victims
were animalled, but the animals are missing. She realizes the point of the murders was the animals, not the people.

She comes home one night to find her drug dealer there, the money she used to pay him was counterfeit. She also
finds a knife that she doesn't recognize sitting on her counter, then she hears sirens outside and she realizes she
is being set up. She tells the drug dealer who agrees they should go their separate ways, though her debt to him is
not tripled.

As she flees she receives a panicked call from one of Song's friends saying they're coming for him. She gets
Benoit to pick her up and use his guard uniform to help her sneak into Odi's place. She finds Maltese there waiting
and he admits she has been set up for all of the animalled murders and a couple of others that are about to take
place.

ZInzi sees something in Odi's big outdoor pool and realizes it is his animal, an albino crocodile. Odi disappeared for
those years because he had killed someone and he has been hiding this fact ever since.

Maltese and Benoit struggle and Benoit falls in the water, Zinzi dives after him and manages to rescue him from
the crocodile who has grabbed and dragged him down through a tunnel that leads to an underground grotto. She
drags Benoit to shore and sees that Odi and Marabou are there with the twins, who are drugged and handcuffed.
She also see's several animals that she recognizes from earlier victims.

Zinzi is hidden behind some rocks and witnesses what she realizes is a magic ritual. Marabou and Odi discuss the
power of twins, and then they kill the animals, performing some sort of binding spell as they do. Done, they
unshackle the twins giving them each a knife. Odi tells them its like a harmless videogame and they should fight
each other. In a drug haze S'bu does so, killing Song.

The undertow comes and Odi forces S'bu to declare that he accepts the crocodile as his own animal. In this way
it's ownership is transferred from Odi to the boy, leaving Odi free for the first time in twenty years. Satisfied he
tells Marabou to kill S'bu.

After they leave Zinzi takes a risk and approaches the crocodile. She tells it that they will kill it and use it's parts
for magic. The animal seems to understand and swims up to the surface again, where it manages to grab and kill
Odi.

They can hear sirens outside and Marabou and Maltese flee the scene, Zinzi following soon after.

The book ends with Zinzi driving out of the city with her sloth and the bag of counterfeit money. The police are
still after her, but she has decided for once to do something good and unselfish, she has a photo of Benoit's family
and will use her ability to track them down for him.

Best part of story, including ending: The concept of the animals and abilities that come with them is very cool,

and a lot of the background details the author adds are interesting (a rapper pretending to have an animal to
appear cooler, how prisons cope with animalled inmates, etc) though the actual murder mystery gets a little
confusing and convoluted at the end.

Best scene in story: The first time we see the undertow, when Zinzi watches a guy on her street get taken

after a fight in which his animal is killed, that's really spooky.

Opinion about the main character: Zinzi is selfish and very negative, so its a bit hard to enjoy seeing the world

through her eyes.

 MALINCHE
BY LAURA ESQUIVEL & TRANSLATED BY ERNESTRO MESTRE-REED

In this brief novel, the author of 1992’s Like Water For Chocolate attempts to repair the reputation of one
of Mexican history’s most reviled women, the Spanish conqueror Cortés’s native interpreter, Malinalli.

As a child, Malinalli (aka Malinche) is sold by her mother into slavery but retains her beloved grandmother’s
belief in the beneficent pre-Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, whose return (second coming?) would mean the end of the
Aztec conqueror Montezuma’s practice of human sacrifice. When Cortés arrives, Malinalli believes he is a savior, if
not the god himself, and is happy to put her linguistic skills to use as his translator. She becomes known as “The
Tongue.” She allows herself to be baptized, entwining Christian doctrine with her own belief system, but, although
she finds herself sexually drawn to Cortés, she begins to suspect that he is not to be trusted to save her people.
Nevertheless, she remains his translator, following her instinct for survival despite the possibility she may anger
her gods. After Malinalli watches Montezuma give up his kingdom because he has faith in Quetzalcoatl’s return, she
realizes that Montezuma has experienced a spiritual transformation but has also made a terrible mistake in placing
his faith in Cortés. As Cortés consolidates a murderous stranglehold over Mexico, he becomes more monstrous.
Finally, Malinalli breaks with him when he requires her to abandon their son in the same way her mother abandoned
her. After Cortés marries her off to his captain, she ends up living a happy life and dying a happy death, at one
with the gods. Because Esquivel is less interested in fleshing out the plot than in delineating the belief system of
the pre-Aztec civilization, everything that happens to Malinalli is swathed in imagery and deep spiritual
significance. In contrast, everything Cortés does is explained as the psychological consequences of his childhood
experience.

Despite its lyricism, this odd marriage of spirituality and psychology will be a slog for all but the most
devoted New Agers.

CORALINE BY NEIL GAIMAN

Coraline Jones and her parents move into an old house that has been divided into flats. The other tenants
include Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, two elderly women retired from the stage and Mr. Bobo, initially referred to
as "the crazy old man upstairs," who claims to be training a mouse circus. The flat beside Coraline's is unoccupied,
and a small door that links them is revealed to be bricked up when opened.
Coraline goes to visit her new neighbours. Mr. Bobo relays to her a message from his mice: "Don't go
through the door." Coraline also has tea with Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, and Miss Spink spies danger in
Coraline’s future after reading her tea leaves.
Despite these warnings, Coraline decides to unlock the door when she is home by herself. This time, she
finds the brick wall behind the door is gone. In its place is a long hallway that leads to a flat identical to her own,
except inhabited by the "Other Mother" and "Other Father," who have black buttons for eyes. The Other Mother
is notably taller and thinner than her real mother. Her black hair seems to move by itself, her skin is paper-white,
and her nails are long and red. Coraline finds the "Other World" more interesting than her own; the Other Mother
cooks food that she actually enjoys, both of her Other Parents pay more attention to her, her toy box is filled with
animate toys that can move and fly, the Other Miss Spink and Miss Forcible perform a never-ending act in their
flat, and the Other Mr. Bobo performs a mouse circus. She even finds that the feral black cat that wanders around
the house in the real world can talk. The cat identifies itself as the same cat that lives in the real world, and
possesses the ability to travel through the gaps between the two worlds. Although intentionally rude and unhelpful
for the greater part of the conversation, it briefly praises her for bringing "protection," then vanishes.
After Coraline returns to the copy of her flat, the Other Mother offers Coraline the opportunity to stay in
the Other World forever, but in order to do so, Coraline must allow buttons to be sewn into her eyes. Coraline is
horrified and returns through the door to her home. Upon return to her apartment, Coraline finds that her real
parents are missing. They do not return the next day, and the black cat wakes her and takes her to a mirror in her
hallway, through which she can see her trapped parents. They signal to her by writing "Help Us" on the glass, from
which Coraline deduces the Other Mother has kidnapped them. Though frightened of returning, Coraline goes back
to the Other World to confront the Other Mother and rescue her parents. In the garden, Coraline is prompted by
the cat to challenge the Other Mother, as "her kind of thing loves games and challenges." The Other Mother tries
to convince Coraline to stay, but Coraline refuses, and is locked within a small space behind a mirror as punishment.
In the small dark closet space, she meets three ghost children. Each had in the past let the Other Mother, whom
they archaically refer to as the "beldam," sew buttons over their eyes. They tell Coraline how the Other Mother
eventually grew bored with them, leaving them to die and cast them aside, but they are trapped there because she
has kept their souls. If their souls can be rescued from the Other Mother, then the ghosts can pass on. The ghost
children implore Coraline to escape and avoid their fate.
After the Other Mother releases Coraline from the mirror, Coraline proposes a game: if she can find the
ghost children's souls and her parents, then she, her parents, and the ghost children may go free. If she loses,
then Coraline will let the Other Mother sew the buttons into her eyes and become a loving daughter to her. The
Other Mother agrees and they both swear on their right hands.
Coraline searches through the Other World and overcomes the Other Mother's obstacles by using her wits
and Miss Spink's lucky stone (the protection the cat referred to) to find the marble-like souls of the ghost
children. She also deduces that her parents are imprisoned in a snow globe on the mantelpiece. The ghost children
warn her that even if Coraline wins, the Other Mother will not let them go, so Coraline tricks the Other Mother by
announcing that she knows where her parents are hidden: in the passageway between the worlds. The Other
Mother cannot resist gloating by opening the door to show Coraline that her parents are not there. When the
Other Mother opens the door Coraline throws the cat at the Other Mother, grabs the snow globe, and escapes to
the real world with the key, and the cat quickly follows. While escaping, Coraline forces the door shut on the Other
Mother's hand. Back in her home, Coraline falls asleep on a chair. She is awoken by her parents who have no
memory of the events.
That night, Coraline has a dream in which she meets the three children at a picnic. The children are
dressed in clothes from different periods and one seems to have wings. They warn her that her task is still not
done: the Other Mother will attempt to get her back and will try to get the key to open the door between the
worlds. Coraline goes to the old well in the woods to dispose of the key. She pretends to have a picnic, with the
picnic blanket laid over the entrance to the well. The Other Mother's severed hand attempts to seize the key, but
steps on the blanket and falls into the well. Coraline returns to the house, greeting her neighbors (who finally get
her name right), and getting ready for school tomorrow.